TI-AIE: Transforming teaching-learning process: leading the use of technology in your school

What this unit is about

Many school leaders aspire to have computers available in their school for students to use in order to support their learning. Others will have heard about computers but may have never really interacted with them themselves. The purpose of this unit is to support you in making the most of available technology in your school, even if you do not have computers. The intension is that your teachers, with motivation and the right skills, will be able to use technology that is available. As school leader, you do not need to be a technological expert (although you will benefit from developing basic skills), but you must provide a vision for ICT to support teaching and learning, and create the environment in which your teachers will embrace this potential.

This unit will highlight some of the ways in which technology can support student learning and the implications for teachers. Using ICT to support learning requires new pedagogical skills from teachers: the internet provides wide access to multiple sources of knowledge, fundamentally changing the relationship between teacher and student. Technology is also rapidly changing, and young and inexperienced teachers may have more skills than established teachers, and may be in a better position to keep abreast of changes. Some of your older teachers may feel threatened; it is up to you to encourage them and create an environment where teachers learn from each other.

Note that the focus of this unit is on leading the use of technology to support learning in your school. It is not about teaching technology as a subject.

What the school leader will learn in this unit

• Insights into the range of technology that might be used in your school.
• To consider the creative use of ICT tools and devices in school.
• Ways to use the internet to support your own learning.
• To support your teachers in using the internet for their own learning and in their classrooms.

1 What technology and skills do you have access to?

The hardware

Figure 1 Hardware can benefit your school …

‘Technology’ includes a large range of different devices such as desktop computers, laptops, mobile phones, smartphones, tablets, projectors, printers, scanners, digital cameras and so on. Some of these can be used on their own, with appropriate software; others can be connected to the internet. In the future, it is likely that phones and tablets will be more readily available than conventional desktop or laptop computers, and so it makes sense to plan around this emerging trend. As a school leader you should try to increase your awareness of technological developments and how they can be harnessed to enhance learning so that you can look for opportunities to provide access to these technologies in your school.

The internet

Figure 2 … and so can access to the internet.

The internet is an immensely powerful resource. Having access to the internet in a school can make an enormous difference to the opportunities available to teachers and students. Even if the internet is not available in school, some of the benefits can be realised by using to devices that can be connected to the internet elsewhere in order to download materials that can then be used offline.

Although the internet is not currently widely available outside the metropolitan areas in India, this will change over time, with mobile devices rapidly offering greater reach and capabilities.

Case Study 1 raises the issue of using mobile phones in school. Some state governments actively discourage the use of mobile phones in school, and it is clearly unprofessional for a teacher to take phone calls or send text messages while they are teaching. However, as mobile phones become more powerful, it is perhaps appropriate to consider how teachers could use them to support learning in their classroom. But this is an issue that you may need to approach with caution. Talk to your teachers and make it clear that they all understand the importance of professionalism, but be flexible enough to help them use their phones for the benefit of their students.

This case study shows how the innovations and excitement of technology can be brought into school by accessing and downloading resources from the internet and then playing them in school. Mrs Mehta invested in some equipment (a laptop, speakers and projector) that she then used to enhance student learning in English. The students not only benefit from the downloaded resources, but also from exposure to the hardware and equipment on which they are played. Notice how the school leader is not only focusing on her students but also on the development needs of her staff, building capacity so that more students benefit.

2 Technology for your personal use

Access to the internet makes knowledge and training much more accessible to everyone in different places, so that teachers don’t have to travel to the DIET, etc. Teachers and school leaders are now in a much better position to take charge of their own learning, which is very helpful when modelling this behaviour to their students.

The first step in taking charge of your own professional development, and encouraging your teachers to do the same, is to explore the resources that are freely available on the internet. You should share those that are helpful and extract any elements that can be recycled in your own context.

TESS-India has produced 125 open education resources (OERs) with and for teachers and school leaders in India. These resources are free and have a Creative Commons licence, which means that you can download them, change them and make as many copies as you like. They are therefore very accessible and are highly adaptable – you can make them fit your context and needs. The TESS-India OERs are probably a good place to start in your search to find other suitable OERs, as they have been approved by an international review panel for quality.

Figure 3 Units available from the TESS-India website are free for you to use.

Case Study 3 describes how a young school leader, Mrs Aparajeeta, used the internet to teach herself new skills that she used in her school to make the curriculum more relevant to her students. Case Study 4 shows how Mr Kapur used his computer and the internet to help with the administrative challenges of being a school leader.

This section has highlighted the potential for technology for your personal use – harnessing the opportunity to learn new skills, provide new tools and find free educational materials. Other possible uses for technology by you could include:

• taking photographs of students’ work in order to encourage peer review or show to parents
• taking a video of your school to publicise the work you do and show to potential financial donors
• joining online networks to communicate and collaborate with other school leaders
• producing documents and presentations about your school for the school management committee (SMC)
• keeping up-to-date with current developments in education and finding out how others tackle problems
• motivating your teachers to develop new skills
• using text messages to communicate with your teachers.

3 Supporting teachers in the use of technology

The questionnaire that you used in Activity 1 will show that the teachers in your school have a variety of skills and experiences of using ICT, often called ‘digital literacy’. Your role is to encourage them to use this know-how to support their professional learning, and to understand how to use technology in their classrooms to support learning. It is helpful to divide the approaches needed to train teachers in ICT into four categories, listed below (adapted from Steketee, 2005):

• Developing key ICT skills: It is possible that some of your teachers need help with basic skills such as using a mouse, or opening and closing documents. Your challenge is to give them the confidence to see the use of ICT as something that will help them in their work.
• Using ICT to develop pedagogical skills: ICT in school can support some of the participatory approaches to learning promoted by the National Curriculum Framework (NCF 2005). It can support moves from rote learning to acquiring higher-order skills such as problem-solving, questioning, organising, evaluating and generating knowledge (Latchem, 2010). ICT can also support inclusion (Central Institute of Educational Technology, 2013), ensuring that marginalised groups have access to materials and resources. Short videos and simulations can stimulate discussion; students can create their own presentations; students can collaborate with and communicate with students in other parts of the world. As they become experts, the relationship between teacher and student will become more democratic, and the students will develop their self-esteem. If you are deciding what technology to buy for your school, a major consideration will be to what extent the technology helps teachers to improve their teaching.
• Using ICT to support subject learning: ICT can be used to support specific areas of the curriculum. Recording devices can enrich language teaching, for example, and simulations can enrich the teaching of science. Access to the internet gives students the opportunity to undertake research of their own and learn about topics that interest them in depth. and students will further develop their self-esteem.
• Using ICT to support professional learning: ICT can be used to support teachers’ professional learning. You could encourage teachers to work together to find and adapt OERs for use in their classrooms. They could work in pairs to film each other in the classroom and then discuss the films with a view to improving their teaching. Teachers who have gaps in their subject knowledge will find a huge number of resources on the internet to help them, including quizzes, simulations and sample test papers with answers. Access to the internet will also provide them with the opportunity to communicate with other teachers through networks, and to develop the skills highlighted in the discussion after Activity 1.

4 Linking technology, skills and learning purpose

It is likely that, in the future, access to the internet, and to computers and other electronic devices, will improve. Also, an increasing number of teachers and students will have access to technology outside school. Your role as school leader will be to ensure that teachers and students in your school have access to technology that is required for you to collectively achieve your educational goals.

A common mistake is to focus on the technology rather than on what you intend to do with it, and to underestimate the practical difficulties of maintaining computer equipment. Being clear about your educational priorities will enable you to select the technology that is most likely to help you meet those priorities.

This is perhaps not too uncommon a situation: not enough thought had gone into planning the maintenance and support of the computers in school. The equipment does not look after itself and users do not automatically know how to use it. See Resource 4 for further advice on maintenance and support.

Activity 5 and Case Study 6 will have highlighted the fact that it is important that the technology you choose depends on the educational outcomes you wish to achieve. Sometimes, a simple option such as a single laptop and a projector can actually have more impact on more students than being able to provide a set of laptops to a class. As tablets come down in price, they may provide many benefits. Also, local initiatives can produce usable technology at relatively low cost.

Pause for thought What is your response to the video in Activity 6? Thinking about your local community, is there anyone who could help you in developing simple solutions to some of the issues around ICT? You can read more about the BRCK here: https://www.kickstarter.com/ projects/ 1776324009/ brck-your-backup-generator-for-the-internet

The final case study highlights some of the educational benefits of technology, as well as the role of teachers in realising those benefits.

5 Developing a strategic approach to ICT

Figure 4 The six strands to handle today’s and tomorrow’s technologies

Curricula for ICT in Education (Central Institute of Educational Technology, 2013) identifies six strands that are relevant for teachers and students in building their capacity to handle today’s and tomorrow’s technologies. These strands are as follows:

1. Connecting with the world: Information literacy – that is, access to information and resources beyond the textbook for teaching and learning.
2. Connecting with each other: For support and professional development, updating different social media, netiquette, etc.
3. Creating ICT: To develop teaching resources, documents and audio-visual material, and to use appropriate file conventions and processes.
4. Interacting with ICT: Understanding the interfaces and selecting the most appropriate tools; and understanding functionality, troubleshooting and safety, connectivity, and maintenance.
5. Possibilities in education: Online resources, interactivity, linking to educational goals, critical view, exploration and experimentation, tools for admin, etc.
6. Reaching out and bridging divides: Inclusion in terms of language, visual and auditory impairments, digital communities, wikis, etc.

The Curricula for ICT in Education represents an aspiration. Your ICT strategy will need to take this into account, but it also needs to reflect the current situation in your school. The activities in this unit should have shown you the level of ICT skills and use among your teachers, and provided you with some ideas about how ICT can support professional development and learning in the classroom. Hopefully you have identified one or two ICT champions who will be able to help you to develop your strategy.

In your ICT strategy you will need to remember to:

• improve the confidence and competence of your teachers
• identify ways in which ICT can support teaching and learning in classrooms in your school
• improve the availability of technology by capitalising on technology that teachers already have and identifying ‘high value’ items – things that will make the greatest impact on the greatest number of people.

6 Summary

In the future it is highly likely that access to the internet and the availability of affordable electronic devices will increase. As a school leader, you need to be aware that you are preparing children for life in a complex and fast-changing world. The more exposure that they can have to new technologies while they are at school, the better equipped they will be to thrive in the future, as, the National Policy on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in School Education 2012 puts it, ‘preparing youth to participate creatively in the establishment, sustenance and growth of a knowledge society leading to all round socioeconomic development of the nation and global competitiveness’.

The aim of this unit has been to demonstrate that using ICT in school does not require a dedicated computer facility, and to highlight some of the ways in which you can build ICT resources in your school. It is important that your ICT strategy:

• takes into account the skills and confidence of your teachers
• achieves the educational outcomes you want to achieve
• puts you in a strong position to capitalise on any opportunities that arise (such as donations and gifts).

This unit is part of the set or family of units that relate to the key area of transforming teaching-learning process (aligned to the National College of School Leadership). You may find it useful to look next at other units in this set to build your knowledge and skills:

• Leading improvements in teaching and learning in the elementary school
• Leading improvements in teaching and learning in the secondary school
• Leading assessment in your school
• Supporting teachers to raise performance
• Leading teachers’ professional development
• Mentoring and coaching
• Developing an effective learning culture in your school
• Promoting inclusion in your school
• Managing resources for effective student learning.

Resources

Resource 1: Teachers and technology

The purpose of this questionnaire is for school leaders to find out the knowledge and skills of teachers in order to plan how technology might be used to support teaching and learning in school.

1. Please indicate in Table R1.1 which technology you currently use both in school and outside school.

2. What skills do you currently have or are keen to learn? Give your answers in Table R1.2.

3. In your daily life as a teacher in this school, list the three biggest teaching and learning challenges that you face.

Resource 2: Technological solutions to common challenges

The sort of challenges that teachers usually highlight include the following:

• ‘I have a very big class.’
• ‘I struggle to finish the syllabus.’
• ‘The students are not motivated.’
• ‘The students find the work very difficult.’
• ‘I don’t have enough resources.’
• ‘I am not confident teaching some of the subjects in the curriculum.’
• ‘The students are badly behaved.’
• ‘I try to use participatory approaches, but students are reluctant to talk or to ask questions.’
• ‘Attendance is very poor, so students miss work and then find it difficult to understand.’
• ‘The syllabus is not relevant to the lives of my students.’
• ‘I am told to use participatory approaches, but it’s not possible because of the size of the class and the syllabus.’

Technology can tackle many of these challenges. By using a single laptop that can be periodically connected to the internet in order to download materials, and a projector, teachers can:

• provide stimulating and interesting introductions to new topics
• use simulations to explain complex ideas
• make links between curriculum topics and the real wold.

By presenting both sides of the argument on a controversial topic, teachers can stimulate discussion and debate among students. Educational applications loaded onto a tablet can be used by students and teachers to develop understanding and are highly engaging. Using a computer to conduct research and to present information gives students the opportunity to take responsibility for their own learning.

Resource 3: Exploring OERs

Below is a list of websites that have OERs:

• National Repository of Open Educational Resources: http://nroer.gov.in/ home/
• TESS-India: http://www.tess-india.edu.in/
• ExamFear videos: https://www.youtube.com/ user/ ExamFearVideos
• Khan Aacdemy: https://www.khanacademy.org/
• The OpenScience Laboratory: http://www.open.ac.uk/ researchprojects/ open-science/
• OpenLearn: http://www.open.edu/ openlearn/
• PhET simulations: https://phet.colorado.edu/ en/ simulations/ category/ new
• Karnataka Open Educational Resources: http://karnatakaeducation.org.in/ KOER/ en/ index.php/ Main_Page

Here is a checklist for assessing the quality of the materials that you find:

• Are the materials relevant to your context?
• Would they engage and motivate teachers and students?
• Do they help to address an identified need in your school?
• Are they well-written and easy to understand?
• Do they add value? Do they provide learning opportunities beyond those available in the textbook or through other sources?

Resource 4: Maintenance and support

Maintenance and support have ongoing costs. You could allocate responsibility to a member of staff who has appropriate knowledge and skills; alternatively, you may need to buy these services in or secure volunteers to help.

Maintenance can be provided either by people who are part of the school system or bought-in. This includes monitoring patterns in the use of applications or equipment. Specific maintenance items might include:

• periodic replacement of parts and renewal of consumable supplies
• repair or replacement of faulty components
• periodic inspection and cleaning of equipment
• updating or upgrading hardware and software, including installing new operating system versions
• adding or deleting users from a system, or modifying user rights and properties
• periodic back-up of stored files on a school network
• monitoring the condition and functionality equipment and networks
• installing and removing equipment and applications.

ICT support is about working with users rather than on equipment and systems. Support keeps users working or helps them to improve the ways they work, including such items as:

• a helpline, or other forms of resolving a problem or providing advice
• automated information systems such as FAQs or newsletters
• initial training and familiarisation with equipment and software.

(Adapted from National Center for Education Statistics, 2003.)

References

Acknowledgements

Except for third party materials and otherwise stated below, this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/ by-sa/ 3.0/). The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence for this project, and not subject to the Creative Commons Licence. This means that this material may only be used unadapted within the TESS-India project and not in any subsequent OER versions. This includes the use of the TESS-India, OU and UKAID logos.

Every effort has been made to contact copyright owners. If any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.

Video (including video stills): thanks are extended to the teacher educators, headteachers, teachers and students across India who worked with The Open University in the productions.